And Other Troublesome Things
by SunRei
Summary: Our two favorite characters, or my two at least, have some interesting selfrevelations and conversations while caught in a tight situation. Part 6 of 6.
1. Chapter 1

_Guess who's back, back, back - back again? -- Eminem_  
...

A/N: Okay, so I'm back with a little flight of fancy. This fic is dedicated to my pal VizzieG (only I can call her that). I started this a little (actual time is irrelevant) while ago for a certain event which shall remain nameless. Anyway, the real point is that this is a new fic - and it's not epic length so this should be a quick ride, but hopefully still enjoyable .

So let's see... the title and most of the various ingredients that make up this fic come from im convos between me and Marcy - and the rest is history (or _this_story, actually). So, here we go. Imagine that the SV world post Crimson didn't neuter Clark's character with episodes like Promise, mix in a few late night ideas and my desire to throw the toys into a box and watch them play - and this is what you get.

Fic Poster: http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5443/troublesomelq2.png

* * *

**And Other Troublesome Things...**  
_aka Breaking the Cycle of Suck_

* * *

Silently cursing the surprise drop in temperature, the leggy brunette pulled the leather jacket a little higher against her body. She knew that the motion was futile – leather was not an effective barrier against cold – still, it was what she had to work with. 

Seeing that she was nearing a break in the trees, she straightened and walked into the small clearing. Her appearance drew the attention of a man who was leaning against a concrete door. In the five seconds that she allowed herself to catalogue her surroundings, her eyes took in the necessary details: the doorway that led into the side of a large rocky hill, the single light bulb rigged to hang above the door, the dirt on the shoes of the guard, and the toothpick hanging from his mouth.

With a bright smile on her lips, she finally focused her gaze on the man's face. His eyes narrowed as he pushed away from the wall.

"I am so glad that I found somebody," she gushed. "I was starting to think that I was going to freeze to death out here."

His chin lifted as he scanned the woods she had emerged from.

She tried again, this time lifting the empty gas container in the air as a visual cue. "My car ran out of gas."

The man smirked; his toothpick rolling to the opposite corner of his mouth as his eyes raked her body. "This place is a little far off the beaten path," he observed. "How did you know it was back here?"

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. It was almost like reading a script – they always responded the same way.

"Well, I came across the parking lot back there and figured that there had to be something going on up here. I've heard people talk about those underground poker tournaments and figured that this had to be my lucky day. Any chance I'll get to see Johnny Chan?" she asked, craning her neck toward the tiny window in the door.

The man's eyes held a smidgen of amusement. "Sorry, Toots," he said, using a hand to slide the cover over the window slot close. "This ain't that type of establishment." He sucked his teeth and stepped closer, taking a circular path to inspect her from another angle. "What's a looker like you doing this far out of town anyway?"

She took a hesitant step back as he closed in on her, showing an appropriate amount of fear at her newfound vulnerability. "I, uh…" She swallowed, her eyes following his hands as they slid under his coat. "I was on my way home from work… I'm a dancer."

The man's face creased into a smile, showing that he was quite familiar with the kind of dancing she did – and no doubt knew where she did it. "Ah. One of Candy's girls. I thought you looked familiar."

She bit back a scoff. From the neck down, most people would look familiar to this bottom feeder. "…Not that I plan on being a dancer forever," she continued, ignoring his last comment. "It sucks when the house takes 80 percent of your take."

He reached out and twirled a lock of her hair around his finger, effectively latching onto her. She grimaced as he tugged her closer to him by the captured strands. "Maybe you'd be interested in a career change? The cut you get from my bosses is a hell of a lot better."

She studied his face. With his post being outside, it would be highly unlikely that he would ever get a taste of the merchandise unless he got to it before the 'bosses' did.

"You'd put in a good word for me?" she asked.

The man's lips curled onto lust-filled sneer. The toothpick waggled suggestively in the corner of his mouth as his tongue crept between his lips to moisten them.

"Leave her alone!"

Immediately, the brunette found herself pinned with her back against the guard's chest, secured with the point of a knife blade against her throat. "What is this?" the man growled suspiciously. "You know him?"

Setting her jaw, she sighed and looked across the clearing. The person who had joined them was someone she knew all right. Normally when she saw him, he was wearing jeans, a blue tee shirt and a red jacket. In what she assumed must have been a burst of unforeseen creativity when he dressed himself that morning, he had switched up his colors. Now, his uniform consisted of jeans and a blue jacket covering a red shirt.

"Smallville, what are you doing here?"

Clark's brow was furrowed and the muscles in his jaws bulged from him gritting his teeth. He seemed to be equally perplexed by the question and by the predicament he was faced with. "Saving you," he replied, taking a step forward.

Lois tilted her head away from the knife at her neck as Clark's advance resulted in additional pressure from her captor. Seeing the movement, Clark stopped abruptly.

Lois glared at him. "I don't _need_ saving," she stated through clinched teeth.

Clark's eyebrows rose in surprise as he looked from her face to the face of the man sneering at him from over her shoulder. "He has a knife," he pointed out unnecessarily.

--

Clark saw her arched eyebrow and immediately, he knew what she was going to do. "Lois, don't…"

Before he could finish his statement, or think of a way to help, Lois had elbowed her captor in his gut and was spinning to face him. She deftly avoided the man's angry lunge and intercepted the thrust of the knife with the broad side of the gas canister. With the knife now embedded in the bright red plastic, Lois used both hands to twist the container, wrenching the dagger from her attacker's hand and disarming him in one swift move. Tossing it aside, she sidestepped a punch and drove the palm of her hand into the man's throat, shoving his Adam's Apple into his windpipe. The guard's eyes teared up as he reached for his neck, and while he was preoccupied with trying to breathe, Lois finished him off with a roundhouse kick to the side of his head.

Dusting her hands off by rubbing them together, she sighed. "I told you I didn't need saving."

Speechless, Clark ran across the clearing and kneeled next to the fallen man and confirmed that he was unconscious. Rising to his feet, he gave her an incredulous look. "You're bleeding," he said, his concern winning out over the exasperation.

He watched as Lois frowned and placed a few fingers to the side of her neck. Glancing at the wetness on her fingertips when she pulled her hand away, she muttered under her breath, "Damn."

She returned the hand to her neck and pressed harder. "It's just a scratch."

Clark suppressed the urge to scold her for her actions. He knew it wouldn't help anything. A light beeping sound pulled his attention back to the man on the ground. Having heard it as well, Lois crouched and began patting the man down with her free hand.

"What are you doing?"

She glanced up, her eyes skirting past him as she looked around warily. "There'll be others."

He looked at her with a narrowed gaze. "Other what?"

Lois returned her attention to her search, reaching into the man's back pocket and pulling out a small walkie-talkie. "Bad guys, knives… guns," she responded in a tone that said it should have been obvious as she rose to her feet. "You know, other troublesome things like that."

The walkie beeped again and Lois turned the knob to increase the volume.

_"No response from Micky at DE3. Peripherals allocated. SQ out."_

Lois turned the volume down and nodded to the supine figure on the ground. "I'm guessing that that's Mickey."

As if in response to her observation, the sound of ATV engines indicated that company was indeed coming. "And those are the peripherals," Clark added.

Lois leaned back down and felt the inside pockets of the man's jacket. Straightening, she stepped over the unconscious man and reached for the door.

Clark turned to face the woods and backed toward Lois and the concrete door she was trying to open. From their surroundings, he guessed that it led to an old mineshaft. He didn't need to use any of his special powers to know that the source of the engine sound was getting closer.

"Damnit!"

He turned to see that Lois's struggle had come to no avail. Obviously she hadn't found any keys on the guard during her search. Clark gazed at the door. There were no keyholes or touch pads anywhere.

"I have a bad feeling that this is one of those doors that has to be opened from the inside," Lois said. She held up the walkie-talkie. "And I'm guessing that Mickey is the one that gives the magic words."

The sound of shouts caused both of them to look into the darkness beyond the trees.

Against his better judgment, Clark stepped to the door and pulled it open. He wasn't entirely sure how being inside of the "bad guy's lair" was better than being out in the open, but at that moment he didn't see an alternative. "It was just stuck…" he offered as an explanation as he pushed Lois through the opening ahead of him.

Thankfully, Lois didn't question their good fortune. She started running down the long passageway that they had gained entrance to as soon as he had pulled the door closed behind him. Clark followed her, glancing at their surroundings as they ran, trying to find somewhere they could hide. The mine beyond the outer door was nothing like what he had expected it to be. Instead of shafts of dirt and damp darkness, they were inside of a dimly lit, carpeted narrow hallway that led deeper into the space at a moderate decline.

"Carpet?" he muttered, voicing his incredulity.

"Shh." Lois had stopped at the end of the hallway where it ended at the interchange of a wider passageway that branched off to the right and the left. The carpet flooring did not continue past the hallway they were in, the crossing passage floors being bare concrete. For whatever this place was supposed to be, it appeared that the carpeted hallway they were in was the main entrance.

Moving behind her, he copied Lois's actions as she leaned around the corner of the wall just enough to gage if the coast was clear. "What _is_ this place?" he whispered.

Lois gave him a wide-eyed look before ducking around the edge of the wall, leaving him no answer and no choice but to follow. As they snuck past a closed door, Clark read the handwritten placard that was affixed to the wall beside the door that declared it to be 'Room #5'. Confused and curious, he slid aside the covering on the window slot and peeked inside. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. To his shock and embarrassment, the two people he'd spied on inside Room #5 were channeling Tarzan and Jane… sans loincloth.

...  
TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Previously:

* * *

_Lois gave him a wide-eyed look before ducking around the edge of the wall, leaving him no answer, and no choice but to follow. As they snuck past a closed door, Clark read the handwritten placard that was affixed to the wall beside the door that declared it to be 'Room #5'. Confused and curious, he slid aside the covering on the window slot and peeked inside. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. To his shock and embarrassment, the two people he'd spied on inside Room #5 were channeling Tarzan and Jane… sans loincloth._

And now:

* * *

"Apparently, there are people out there who are willing to part with a great deal of money to make a few… fantasies come true," Lois voiced in a low tone. 

When she realized that Clark was still standing immobile next to the door and looking at her in speechless shock, she shook her head and tugged on his arm. She pulled him past a few more closed doors and noticed with mild amusement that he was having no trouble avoiding the little glass peep holes.

He cleared his throat. "So, this is…"

Lois glanced up at him through the corner of her eye. "…An underground sex hostel," she finished for him.

Clark's eyes seemed to grow larger. "What are you doing at a place like this?" he demanded in a whisper.

She stopped walking and turned to face him; her hands bracketing her hips indignantly. Her purpose here should have been obvious. "What do you _think_ I'm doing here?"

Belatedly, she realized that her full length leather outfit didn't really support her annoyance. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin defiantly. "Exposing it, of course."

Clark's jaw muscles jumped as he bit out, "Alone? You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Correction – alone, I was doing fine. _You_ almost got me killed."

Suddenly, the first passageway that they had entered through became illuminated. With a series of dull clanks, more lights came on as banks of fluorescent bulbs came alive behind them. It was almost as if the lights were living things – living things that were chasing them.

"Crap! Come on," Lois exclaimed, grabbing his arm and pulling him along the corridor again. She slid to a stop when they reached an open door. "They'll be looking for someone in the halls," she explained in a panicked tone, dragging him inside the room and shouldering the door closed.

Once inside, her eyes flicked about the small space they were in. She caught sight of the form of a tall man in the shadows on the far side of the room and jumped in alarm, backing roughly into Clark's chest with a grunt. "Oof."

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw that it wasn't a man at all but statue. "What the hell?"

It seemed that the room they had stumbled into was an ode to the days of Camelot – or rather, the nights of Camelot, considering the activities that were no doubt supposed to take place there. The statue was a full length coat of arms, standing guard next to a wooden post that went from the ceiling to the floor. Lois gulped when she realized that the post was not load-bearing, and the leather straps wrapped around it weren't for decoration.

"Uh, Lois…"

Abruptly, she stepped forward and away from Clark, suddenly aware that their situation hadn't gotten any safer. Turning her attention away from the _-shudder-_ strapping post, Lois saw a drawbridge plank on the right side of the room, suspended from the wall by large chains. The wall behind it was decorated with a painted image of a castle. The wooden plank was obviously the designer's idea of a bed.

Across from the bed, a three dimensional tree extended from the wall, its branches attaching to the ceiling toward the center of the room. She decided to ignore the handcuffs hanging from the middle branch. The only illumination in the room came from a dim red light over the door and from the light from the hall shining trough the door's window slot. Suddenly the room brightened as the hallway lights outside in the door came on.

Lois spun to meet Clark's eyes. Heated voices were making their way down the halls where the lights had previously chased them.

"Company's coming," he said.

"At least with our boy being unconscious, they don't know who they are looking for," she replied, eyeing the door again.

Swallowing, she tried to think of what to do next. The baddies might not know who they were looking for, but standing out like a sore thumb would be a sure way to give them a clue. She pulled Clark over to the drawbridge bed and pushed him down onto it. She looked at him apologetically and turned to quickly scan the room again. "We need a cover."

--

Clark sucked in a breath and pulled Lois down next to him. Rolling her underneath him, he stifled her surprised yelp when he placed his mouth over hers. Her eyes went wide and he silently urged her to play along. His hearing had informed him that their pursuers were going from room to room and that they were seconds away from the one he and Lois were in. His attention to the hallway faltered as Lois relaxed beneath him and gave in to the performance.

At the door, the slot slid open and he fought the urge to turn around and look. Tarzan and Jane had been too preoccupied with their actions to notice his earlier interference – their indifference was probably the example to follow. Mercifully, the slot slid shut after half a minute.

Clark pushed himself upright. Lois was giving him a strange, calculating look. For a moment, a flash of fear skirted down his spine. She had looked at him like that once before since the time he had disguised himself as the Green Arrow… but she didn't remember it.

"When I said that we needed a cover, I was thinking more along the lines of a blanket…" she said with narrowed eyes. She stood up and continued to stare at him oddly. "That way, we could have just made noises and not actually…" She finished her statement by making circular motions with her hands.

Clark was at a loss for a reply. He swallowed and straightened his jacket. "Oh."

Clearing his throat, he glanced back up at her. "Your neck looks good… better, I mean. It's not bleeding anymore."

Lois's brow cinched for a moment before her expression cleared. "I told you it was just a scratch."

She stood and walked across the room to the tree and began to feel curiously around its trunk. He noticed the hidden cabinet door at the same time she did. Lois opened it, searching for anything useful, and he saw her grimace as she pulled out something silk held between the fingertips of her thumb and forefinger.

"Um… ew," she commented, dropping it to the floor and wiping her hand on her pants.

Turning back to the cabinet, Lois pulled a flashlight out and flicked it on. Satisfied with the battery power, she turned it back off and crossed to the door. When she put her ear to the door, Clark guessed that she was trying to gage where their pursuers had gone.

Clark narrowed his eyes and tuned his vision so he could look through the wall. Engaging it, he could see that men with large guns were moving deeper into the mine.

"Okay, facts," he heard Lois announce. "Unconscious guard outside who failed to respond to a call from Command Central… Evidence of a struggle…" She paused in thought. "…And an empty gas canister with a knife stuck in the side of it. They don't know who, how many, or where we are, or even if we are inside," she listed, ticking each point off with a finger. "Which means we can walk out of here like everyone else who's here for the…" She waved a hand in the air. "… You know."

Clark was relieved that she didn't want to add detail the 'you know' anymore that he did. Her points were valid except for the additional fact that the door 'Mickey' was supposed to be guarding now sported a busted lock. With that knowledge, 'the powers that be' in this situation would now know that the 'intruder' – or intruders, actually – was definitely inside. Most likely, the guards would carefully inspect anyone attempting to leave, making sure that their business here was, in fact, the… 'you know'.

Of course, Clark couldn't really share this reasoning with Lois. "I don't know. What if there is some kind of secret handshake the guests have to use to get out or something? We wouldn't know it."

Even in the dim light of the room, he could make out the arch of Lois's right eyebrow. "A secret handshake?"

Clark shrugged. "That, or Mickey could wake up at any moment and ID us. I think we should try to find another way out of here."

--

Lois gnawed on her lower lip in thought. His point threatened to counter all of hers. "Okay."

She leaned and put her ear back to the door. She really hadn't been fond of the idea of remaining in the room and waiting like sitting ducks anyway.

The hallway outside of the door seemed to be unoccupied for the moment. She didn't have too much hope that it would stay that way for much longer. "Ready?"

She waited long enough for Clark to rise from the bed and move behind her before pulling the door open. Together, they stepped into the hall, simultaneously checking opposite ends of the corridor for guards or guests alike. Lois was about to suggest going back down the hall in the direction they had come from when Clark stepped around her and pulled her the other way.

Confused, she glanced over her shoulder to see what they were running from, but there was nothing there. She shot Clark a glance out of the corner of her eye as she allowed herself to be dragged along.

Suddenly, he stopped and kneeled. "In here."

Lois's eyes bulged at what he was referring to as 'here'.

He had stopped and opened what appeared to be a slotted circular slab of concrete in the floor. How he had noticed it in the darkness was beyond her. She crouched next to him to get a better look at the suggested hiding place. He slid his finger through a metal hook in the middle of the slab and pulled it out – apparently she had been wrong in assuming it was concrete. There was no way he could have pulled it out that easily otherwise.

The removal of the slab uncovered a pit of pitch black. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Clark responded gravely. He took a brief moment to gaze at the emptiness behind them before pulling the flashlight from her grasp. Sliding the switch to its 'on' position, he dropped it into the hole so it could illuminate the dirt floor below. In the next second, Lois found herself being unceremoniously lowered into the darkness.

Before she could protest being manhandled, Clark had released her hands. She dropped a few feet to the floor and rolled to the side as Clark followed seconds later. Lois gazed up at the ceiling while he brushed dirt from his pants. The hole was still open. Leaving it that way would be like placing a glowing arrow pointing out the direction the 'bad guys' should follow.

"Give me a lift, would you?"

--

Clark moved behind her and lifted her to his shoulder. From that height, she was able to reach through the hole and slide the heavy slab cover back into place.

Dropping back to the ground, Lois picked up the flashlight. Spearing Clark with the light, she sighed. "Now, what?"

Clark glanced up and scratched the back of his neck. He had gotten them this far, but he was clueless on how to proceed from there. By some twist of luck, the walls of the shaft they were currently in were lined with lead. His ability to cheat the maze had been rendered useless.

"Um…" he started; his head swiveling as he considered their surroundings. The shaft seemed to mirror the level above without the rooms jutting off of the main hall. "Maybe if we follow this back toward the main door Mickey was guarding, it will lead to an exit."

--

Lois nodded and headed in the suggested direction. Her thoughts were all over the place, and the process of putting one foot in front of the other was a welcome distraction. The muscles in her arms were sore from sliding that cover back into place. It had been heavier than she'd anticipated after seeing Clark move it, and that in itself was another confusing thought to add the melee. Nothing was as it seemed… especially not her current emotions.

When the beam of the flashlight showed that the path was ending, she stopped. After walking in the intended direction for a little over twenty feet, they had come to a dead end. The shaft they were in was capped off with what appeared to be a steel door.

"I don't like it." Instead of a knob or a simple door handle, the door sported a round turnstile handle like the kind seen on underground water pipes.

Lois put her hand up when Clark started to walk past her to inspect it. "I don't like it," she repeated, turning to face him and pointing the light to his face.

Clark blinked at the light and reached out to move her hand so his eyes were no longer being accosted. "What's not to like?" he asked. "It's a door that's right under the main entrance. It could be a way out."

"Key word in that statement being _could_." Lois frowned and shined the light on the handle again. "It's called resistance, Smallville. You don't have to do everything that pops into your head, you know."

"Wait, who are you again?" Clark asked, flashing her a disconcerting grin – disconcerting because of the odd chill that went up her back when he did it. "The Lois Lane that I know never checks the water level before jumping in."

Lois flinched at his statement but didn't respond to his goading. "All I'm saying is that just because there is a door there, it doesn't mean that you have to open it." She gestured to the knob. "And just because there is a handle there, it doesn't mean you have to turn it."

Clark gave her an odd look. Lois knew that there was a _slight_ chance that she was overreacting, but she couldn't ignore the feeling in her gut – nor explain it.

"What is it?"

The concern in Clark's voice snapped her to attention. She was definitely overreacting if Clark Kent was picking up on her discomfort. He wasn't really the most astute person when it came to her moods and his odd moments of empathy on her part tended to unnerve her.

She flipped her hair over her shoulders and blew out a breath. "That knob thingie reminds me of the doors in a submarine. A knob like that usually means that water is nearby and I have a thing with water, okay? You happy?"

"You have a _thing_ with water?" Clark asked. "Since when?"

"Since always," she replied in a huff, spinning around to face him. If they went back to the manhole cover thingie, they could just wait it out. After the people upstairs realized that there weren't any unidentified people in the building, they would have to assume that the intruders had gotten away… _Right?_

"But you take showers," Clark commented, obviously not giving up on the water issue. "And you swim."

Lois sighed. "It takes me a moment to convince myself to do it, but yes… I swim." She glared at him. "Why is this such a big deal?"

--

Clark's brow furrowed for a second as he thought about her question. Honestly, he wasn't sure why it was such a big deal. He figured that part of the reason was because it was obviously a big deal to Lois. For some reason, he couldn't shake the need to get to the bottom of it.

And then, suddenly it hit him. During his recruiting trip to Met U, back when he had still dreamed of accepting a football scholarship, Lois had been paralyzed and left in a pool of rising water. Then, last summer, she had hit her head on the side of the diving dock at Crater Lake and almost drowned while unconscious... And if that wasn't enough, he had learned from Oliver that she had been tortured by thugs who had held her head under water while trying to get her to confess the true identity of the Green Arrow.

Given the circumstances, anyone in Lois's shoes would have a 'thing' with water. Mollified, he nodded and walked over to the knob. "Look, this is not attached to any pipes," he announced rubbing his hand over the surface of the wall behind the handle. It was too bad he couldn't see what was on the other side, but going through it seemed to be a far safer bet than staying put.

"Maybe this was once a reservoir for the mine but it hasn't been used in years. It's dry now but the path could lead to a way out. The water had to go somewhere…" he reasoned.

He offered Lois a sheepish grin and reached for the handle just as she reluctantly moved to stand beside him. She still didn't look convinced. In fact, she seemed to grow pale as he added force to his actions.

"Wait! Don't op…" but the rest of her words were lost as the floor opened up beneath them.

...  
TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Previously:

* * *

_He offered Lois a sheepish grin and reached for the handle just as she reluctantly moved to stand beside him. She still didn't look convinced. In fact, she seemed to grow pale as he added force to his actions._

_"Wait! Don't op…" but the rest of her words were lost as the floor opened up beneath them._

And now:

* * *

Lois cursed silently and did her best to keep her limbs tucked close to her body as she slid down into the depths. The sudden loss of footing had jostled her and she had dropped the flashlight; it had fallen to the ground and rolled clear of the opening just before they fell. Now, not only were they falling, sliding and bouncing down into the deep, but they were doing all of those things in the dark. 

Finally – mercifully - she slid to a halt in a place where the chute narrowed and leveled off. For all she could tell, they were at the bottom of some type of pit.

"Oofft." The wind was forcefully expressed from her lungs as Clark landed on top of her.

"Sorry." He tried to move, but the space and position they were in made it nearly impossible.

"Hold on," Lois wheezed. His movements were making it harder for her to catch her breath. "Just give… a minute…" She gently leaned her head back against the wall that had stopped their downward slide and closed her eyes. Her head was hurting from having smacked against the wall on the initial landing, her ribs and lungs were sore from having cushioned Clark's fall, and her ankle was sending out painful throbs of protest.

"I told you I had a bad feeling about that handle," she commented when she could breathe again and her various ailments had calmed. She opened her eyes and allowed herself to adjust to the dark.

"Who could have known that there was a hole in the ground?" Clark asked.

"Right, because an open chute in a mine shaft is farfetched." Lois's answering smirk was lost in the darkness.

"Normally, _you're_ the voice of temperance and sobriety," she muttered.

She tried to adjust her position when she felt Clark lift his weight from the half of her body that had padded his landing. In the limited space, the best they could manage was to each lie on their sides facing the other. Any further movement was impaired by the walls pressing against them on all sides. The movements had only succeeded in wedging them more securely in the gap. "What was the reason you said you were here for again? Something about saving me?"

He looked satisfyingly sheepish. "There's still time. It looks like we might be here for a while."

Lois rolled her eyes and looked up. Given the distance of the small beam of light that they could still see from the flashlight, the shaft opening was nearly twenty-five feet above them. They were definitely going to be here for a while. "Care to explain why you felt the need to come after me tonight?"

Lois couldn't see Clark shrug but she felt it. "You have a knack for finding trouble," he responded flatly.

Her eyes narrowed. "_Trouble_ has a knack for finding me," she retorted pointedly. "But why the sudden concern? I haven't talked to you in over a month."

"You haven't talked to _anyone_ in Smallville in over a month. People were worried… I came to check… and here we are."

"Here we are," Lois agreed with a light scoff.

--

Clark frowned at the apparent sneer. "Why haven't you been back to Smallville in over a month? Chloe's practically taken over your apartment," he chided, knowing that Lois tended to be territorial.

"Just as she wanted it," Lois said under her breath, not meeting his eyes.

Clark titled his head. "That's not true…"

She cut him off. "Tell me something – when you were referring to those people who were worried, was my cousin one of them, or was it mainly your mom?"

She smirked when he hesitated. She had her answer.

"What happened between the two of you?"

"Nothing happened." Lois awkwardly lifted a hand to move the hair out of her eyes, careful not to elbow Clark in the face while doing it. "It was more like a bunch of little happenings. Basically, I got tired of pretending not to notice the cold shoulder I was getting from _both_ of my closest friends."

Clark slowly released a breath. Her words had hit home. "I'm sorry. I know I've been a little preoccupied lately…"

He had been unusually self-centered with the whole Phantom Zone aftershock and later with the Lex and Lana relationship. Chloe had been his sounding board so it was only natural that they spent time together, and the information they shared hadn't been stuff they could share with Lois. He hadn't meant to shut Lois out, and he was sure that Chloe hadn't been doing it on purpose either. "…But I know Chloe wouldn't want you to think that she doesn't care."

Lois's eyebrow arched. "Yet, what was her position on the whole Operation Hunt for Lois scheme?"

Clark dropped his chin. Chloe hadn't been supportive of the idea at all. At the time of the discussion, Chloe's lack of interest had bugged him a little. It had almost seemed as if she was relieved that Lois wasn't around; almost as if she were happy to have Smallville and its inhabitants back to the way it had been before Lois had blown into town. He knew that Chloe was a little territorial herself – but upon thinking those things, he had immediately discarded the theory… Now, compounded with Lois's sarcastic barbs, those thoughts were sneaking back up.

--

Lois could tell what thoughts were tumbling through Clark's mind even though she couldn't see him clearly. "It's okay, Clark – really. In a way, I can even understand where she's coming from. Things tend to happen for me in a way that it doesn't happen for other people. Sometimes it can be intimidating."

"What do you mean?"

She ran her tongue over her teeth as she tried to think of a way to put it into words. "When something interests me, I go after it. Most people spend a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of their actions so long that they end up with analysis paralysis and fail to do anything at all."

She paused again. "The difference between Chloe and I is that I'm going to get my big break because I'm not going to stop hunting it _until_ I get it. Chloe's waiting for it to come to her. Journalism was her thing, but now I've got the bug and I'm going after it with all guns blazing. Since that encroaches on her domain – it's only natural that she's protective of everything else she considers to be 'hers'."

Clark seemed to consider that for a moment. "Like Smallville?" he asked.

Lois chuckled wryly. "Naturally."

"And you're okay with that? You're just going to hide from her?"

"I'm not hiding, Clark. When Chloe's ready to find me, she'll know how to do it," she replied, bristling. She then nodded in his direction. "It's obviously not a hard thing to do."

Shifting slightly she turned her attention back to the shaft above them. "So… any ideas on how this whole 'saving me' thing is going to work?"

Clark tilted his head to look up as well. "Okay, so it hasn't really gone as well as I planned," he conceded. He lowered his head to look back at her. "How were you planning to get out of this place before I came along?"

Lois's eyes shifted away from his. To tell the truth, she hadn't really thought that far along. Her brand of planning was to seek an opening and take it.

Clark sighed. "Looiiisss," he drawled, "why do you do this to yourself?"

Lois turned on him sharply, thoughts of escape momentarily tabled. "Why do I do _what_ to myself?"

"Get yourself in positions where people hold knives to your neck! You work for the Inquisitor – somehow I don't think they would assign you to a story like this." His raised eyebrows indicated that he awaited confirmation of his assumption.

"I don't plan on working for the Inquisitor for the rest of my career," she replied, circumventing Clark's unvoiced question.

"There might not be a 'rest of your career' at the rate you're going," he muttered.

"Don't judge me, Smallville." Lois reached up to swat his chest and earned a banged elbow for her trouble. Grimacing, she returned her arm to her side. "You want to know what _story_ I was assigned tonight? A write-up about an alien visitation claim from Cassie Morgan. It was ridiculous and implausible – not worth the time to write it or the time of anyone who has half a brain to read it."

"You don't believe in intergalactic travelers?"

Lois frowned at the term. "What I don't believe is that an _intergalactic traveler_ would come all this way just to breed with Angel, Mrs. Morgan's poodle – a poodle who, prior to its apparent abduction and fecundation, was male."

Clark's expression briefly showed reluctant agreement before morphing back into one of self-righteous judgment again.

"No," Lois said, seeing the transformation happen. "Don't start."

--

Clark tried to sober his expression. He was learning that his face tended to reveal more than he wanted it to. "I'm sorry, it's just that I can't help but think that a story is not worth it when you could end up dead."

Lois was silent for a full minute and Clark found that he couldn't get a clear read on her aura. She could either be pissed or thoughtful.

"A story," she said flatly. His intuition began leaning toward the 'she was pissed' end of the spectrum. "That's all you think this is, isn't it?" She met his eyes and shook her head in disbelief.

"Let me tell you what I found out about this 'House of Dreams' we've stumbled into. Up in that converted mine there are about a dozen or more young women and young _men_ who have bought into the lie that selling their bodies is the only way they can achieve a slice of happiness in their lives. What's worse is that most of them, if given the chance, would choose to remain skin brokers because the money they earn with just _one_ trick is more than you and I could make in a year."

Her eyes narrowed. "There is a ring of people – of _corporations_ even – that go around making this conversion with illegal immigrants, people who come to this country in search of freedom and civil rights. They go to these holding stations where immigrants are being readied for deportation and they take the ones with the most 'beauty' and the most 'potential', and they create places like this," she said, waving her hand to indicate their general surroundings.

"And as for that slice of happiness that they are promised… we are all promised the _pursuit_ of happiness at no cost – and especially not at a cost this high. You might be asking, who am I to try to take on this world, or why I'm willing to try to create a change in the level of an ocean that I can only spit in, but my question is - how could I not? Someone has to stand for something."

She pointed to the shaft above them with blazing eyes, her tirade still at full power. "Someone has to stand for them. Right now, they don't understand that when the glamour and the money end, everything they've done and everything they've allowed to be done to them is going to come back in spades. You can't win every fight, but damn it, it's the fight itself that makes it worth doing."

She released a breath, finally having come to the end of her rant. "Just a story," she repeated. "No. Not even close." She dropped her head back against the wall behind her.

Clark was left speechless. Lois always had a knack for making him see the world in a whole new light. He had always been skeptical of the 'one person can make a difference' PSA. Here he was, a Kryptonian on earth, and all he had been faced with throughout his entire life were situations that constantly spiraled out of his control. Everything he tried to hold on to danced out of his grasp on a regular basis.

Thinking of Lois's words, it occurred to him for the first time that his motivation for holding those things close had always been self-centered.

One, he wanted to save the world from the Phantom Zone escapees because he had been the one to release them from the interstellar prison. Two, he had taken the role of protector against Meteor Freaks because the poison that infected them were remnants from his destroyed native planet. Sadly, those were only two of the more obvious examples. There were more where those came from.

On the contrary, Lois's motivations were always externally directed. Abashed, he realized that he should have remembered that before attacking her earlier. It was one of the things that he admired most about her – the other things that fit that description only spelled trouble for him.

He raised his gaze to look at her. Lois had closed her eyes but her tensed brow made it apparent that she was gaining no serenity from the action. He desperately felt the need to make amends but couldn't think of a good way to do so. Looking back up to the lip of the chute they had fallen into, he sorted through their limited options. Even though he wanted to burst through the walls to get them out of this situation, he knew that doing so would only result in the entire structure falling down.

"We should think about how we're going to get out of here…" he offered lamely, hoping that steering away from the previous conversation topic would ease the mounting tension.

Then, as if to put an addendum to their already dim situation, the flashlight died, taking away the small source of light they had.

"Damn."

"What?" Lois asked. Then, after a beat, she added her own take on the new circumstance, "Crap."

Obviously she had opened her eyes to see what had happened and had been confronted with darkness.

She sighed. "Hand me your phone."

The way Lois moved from subject to subject without segue or warning often left him confused. "My phone?"

"You _do_ have your phone, don't you?"

Clark frowned. It was habit. "Well, yeah, but…" He couldn't figure why she would be asking for his phone when she could use her own.

"Does it look like I could hide a phone somewhere in this outfit?" she scoffed in impatient annoyance, having read his mind. "I left mine in my car. Do you have your phone or not?"

"It's in my back pocket…" he admitted, struggling to find a way in the cramped space to reach for it. "…but I'm not sure we'll be able to get a signal down here."

--

"It doesn't hurt to try," Lois replied tightly, trying to curb her rising irritation. She was wedged in the bottom of some old abandoned water chute in complete darkness and her arm was starting to tingle from having all of her weight lying on it for an extended period of time. The least he could do was work with her ideas – even if they weren't necessarily viable ones. Sometimes it was helpful to cycle through the bad theories just so the good ones could surface.

"I can't reach it…"

Lois groaned. This wasn't going to be pretty, but she had a sinking feeling that before the night was out, they were going to have to invade one another's personal space even more than their current positions required.

"Come here," she grunted, reaching out with her free hand and pulling Clark to her. She shifted the focus of her vision away from him as his body pressed flush against her, forcing her thoughts elsewhere as she awkwardly dug into his rear pockets to retrieve the phone.

She was still a bit miffed that she had gotten so uptight about Clark's earlier judgment of her actions. She didn't know why his misguided self-righteousness even bothered her.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She _did_ know why it bothered her, but she didn't like what those reasons implied.

"I got it," she announced, clearing her throat after her voice came out a little too huskily.

Clark shifted back to his original position but it seemed that the space had somehow gotten even smaller. Pouring all of her mental energy into something other than the feel of his body pressed against hers, Lois lifted the phone into view and flipped it open. The light from the LCD display provided a dim eerie glow.

"No signal," she declared disappointedly after moving the phone to different spots in the air. She pressed and held the button to turn the phone's power off. The light it could have provided would have been nice to have, but the battery power was more important. Whenever they did manage to get themselves out of this hell hole, they would need to be able to make a call.

"I think I saw something," Clark said. "Just before you turned off the phone… there's some kind of tunnel branching off of this chute about ten feet up."

Lois frowned and looked up even though she couldn't see anything. She thumbed the phone back on but its limited range gave her no indication of what he'd seen. "Are you sure?"

"Positive…" he started to shift a bit. "We should try to stand up."

Lois nodded but wasn't really excited about the prospect of having to bump pelvises with Clark in the process. The chute walls had them pressed so tightly together that grinding was exactly what they were going to have to do in order to rearrange their bodies into upright positions. "Yeah, okay."

Lois felt a wave of lightheadedness and blinked it away. This was not the time for weakness, she scolded herself. Sucking in a labored breath, she started to push herself up. Clark started moving at the same time, and their combined efforts gained them nothing – other than a vinyl wedige on Lois's behalf.

She stopped moving. "Hold on. We need a plan."

Clark stopped as well. "You're right. Why don't you roll this way…" he began, shifting underneath her as Lois moved her body on top of his. His voice trailed off once she started sliding down his chest. Her intentions were to slide to a point where she could put a knee on the ground between his legs for balance, but the hitch in his breathing caused her to pause.

Meeting his eyes, her mind slid back to the kiss he had sprung on her earlier. It had been unexpected, but her reaction to it had been more so. She swallowed and forced herself to think of something else… namely their escape. The hit her head had sustained upon landing was obviously making her thoughts untrustworthy. She considered reversing the direction of her slide but found that she was at an impasse when she realized that sliding that way would leave him with a mouthful of…

Clark cleared his throat. "Um…"

"Sorry," she breathed, hurrying to complete her original move. She consciously created space between her chest and Clark's by bracing her hands against his shoulders.

As she moved off of him, Clark sat up and pulled his legs toward his chest in order to give her room to get up. She groaned and stumbled when she attempted to stand.

Immediately, Clark propped himself against the walls that were pressing in on them from the sides and rose to his feet. He grabbed her arm to help stabilize her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just a little…" Lois blinked and waved a hand dismissively in the air. She bit back a grimace as she gingerly moved her weight to the uninjured leg. "I think my foot fell asleep."

"Why do you always do that?" he demanded. The tone in his voice indicated heavy frustration and annoyance. It surprised her a little.

"Do what?"

"Downplay everything and pretend like nothing is ever wrong or that nothing ever gets to you."

Lois ground her teeth and tried not to let his outburst fuel one of her own. "As opposed to acting as if everything that happens is a sign that the world is ending?" she shot back vehemently. So much for remaining calm.

She could tell without seeing him clearly that his posture had turned defensive. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Lois blew a breath aimed at her bangs. "Nothing."

"No, I want to hear it…"

"Look, Smallville, all I'm saying is that if you're looking for someone to play the damsel in distress to your tortured hero, you've got the wrong girl. I'm not your everyday weak, sniveling female who sits around waiting for some overgrown boy scout to come along and save her. You may think that the feeble desperation shown by the people in your fan club is an indication of a deeper connection, but that reasoning doesn't apply to me and it doesn't give you the permission to treat me as if it does. I can take care of myself and if I decide to downplay the seriousness of a situation as a means to survive it, it's probably because I've seen the way brooding and dwelling on things that are uncontrollable can make a person useless."

Almost as soon as the words spilled out, she wanted to take them back. The hurt emanated off of him like a pale aura. These were the times when she wished she had a little bit of that reserve she had just condemned.

"I can't apologize for caring about what happens to you… even if it makes you think I'm weak," he responded tightly. His voice was soft and level, making her remark to herself that he had done a better job than she of keeping his emotions in check.

Lois remained quiet for a moment. His hand was still supporting her arm - it had remained there even when she was attacking him. No, she didn't think of him as being weak for caring about other people, on the contrary, she was starting to think that he was the strongest person that she knew. After all, he managed to put up with her, didn't he?

Not many people had the nerve or the desire to do that… not even her own cousin.

"I'm always going to be there when you are in trouble," he added solemnly.

She swallowed. "Don't make promises you can't keep," she muttered under her breath in low voice that he wouldn't hear. "I didn't mean all that…" she offered apologetically.

But she knew that on some level she did… and she knew that he knew it too. If she was genuine in her remorse, she would have to show it… she would have to let him in a little.

"I tweaked my ankle a little when the floor gave away," she admitted haltingly. Revealing her own vulnerabilities was more painful than her sprained ankle. "I don't think it's serious, but it hurts to put weight on it."

Clark dropped to a knee and reached for her leg. "Let me check…It could be broken."

"It's not!" Lois exclaimed, frowning down at his head. "I need to keep the boot on for the swelling…" She trailed off in confusion when Clark released her leg and stood back up without having touched her foot.

He ran a hand through his hair roughly. "It's not broken," he agreed. "But if I had just listened to you about that handle…"

"Hey," Lois interrupted him with a hand on his chest. "We've been through that already - and we learned an important lesson: always, _always_ trust my instincts." With a mental smack, she realized that she was doing the downplay thing again. It was hard to go against the natural grain of her personality… and she had to respect that the same principal applied to Clark. His was a tendency toward guilt – whether rightly assigned or not.

"Don't get all guilty on me," she cautioned. "It's an ankle, and it's still attached. You should be more concerned about the blow my head took when we landed."

The words didn't really bring about the reaction she had hoped for. "You hit your head?! Why didn't you say anything?"

Lois sighed. "It was more of a bump than a bang," she said. "My time in Smallville has accumulated so many ko's that I know the routine for head trauma – stay awake, stay alert, and look for signs of brain injury. At least I'm not to the point where a simple finger flick to the head could send me into dream land," she chided with a smug grin.

Clark seemed to pale suddenly but she decided that she wasn't seeing clearly.

"Signs of brain injury?" he repeated shakily.

"Head down."

"What?"

"It's an acronym," she explained, retrieving her arm from his grasp. "HDDWN. Headache, dizziness, a dilated pupil, weakness, and nausea. If I start slurring my speech, then you can start to worry."

She pressed a button on the phone in her hand to reactivate the LCD screen. When she clearly saw his pained expression, she gave up on tempering back her 'downplay' gene - in her defense, it was usually the only thing that was successful against Clark's 'broody' one.

"Don't look so guilty, Kent. I mean, yes, you _did_ crash my investigation, and you _were_ the one who turned the handle that sent us careening down into this pit… but you meant well."

...  
TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Previously:  
---  
_She pressed a button on the phone in her hand to reactivate the LCD screen. When she clearly saw his pained expression, she gave up on tempering back her 'downplay' gene - in her defense, it was usually the only thing that was successful against Clark's 'broody' one._

"Don't look so guilty, Kent. I mean, yes, you did_ crash my investigation, and you _were_ the one who turned the handle that sent us careening down into this pit… but you meant well."_  
---

And now:  
---

Even with her words, Clark couldn't help but to feel guilty. She had been kidding when she had mentioned that a flick to the head could cause a concussion, but he had once done just that to her. Sure, he hadn't been himself at the time, having been mind-controlled by a blonde magician, but the fact remained that he had intentionally inflicted injury upon her. If she ever had prolonged suffering from the effect of numerous head traumas, he would bear the weight of some of the blame.

"Relax, Smallville. It's nothing to worry about. I didn't lose consciousness and my memory is intact. Just… forget I even said anything. Once we get out of here, you can take me in for a body scan if you want, but right now we need to concentrate on living though this. Deal?"

Clark nodded distractedly but knew that he could neither forget nor ignore what had happened. He made a mental note to keep tabs on her breathing patterns to make sure that everything stayed on the upside.

She flashed the phone above her. "Where is this tunnel you saw?"

"Behind you," he answered, pointing it out. "If I lift you up, you should be able to reach it."

Lois crossed her arms and peered up at the crevasse. She seemed to consider his theory for a few minutes, before shaking her head. "We don't know where that goes. It could be another hole."

Clark's lips got caught in something between a smile and a frown. "The voice of temperance and sobriety, right?" He shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to try," he said, repeating her earlier argument.

She met his eyes and he could see that she was gauging his suggestion against their other options – which just happened to be nil and nil. The phone's screen flicked off again and this time she let it remain that way.

"There's still the problem of getting you up there with me," she countered.

"It's not that far up," he said. "I can jump." Now that they were standing, the branching tunnel was just under four feet above his head. Even without his leaping ability, it wouldn't be hard to reach.

"Either we try that or we run the risk of becoming skeletons down here because I'm not getting any other ideas right now," he added when her silence spoke volumes about her doubt.

"These walls are pretty close together," she observed. "We should be able to just climb up them using resistance. That way we can nix the idea of the tunnel all together and get back to the top."

Clark chuckled. "You may be dressed for a Mission Impossible but you forgot the suction gloves. There is no way you could put enough pressure on your foot to do that…" He didn't feel the need to add that the metal walls of the chute were too slick for that idea anyway.

"Fine," she grumbled, giving in.

"Fine," he answered, equally exasperated. His guilt over being the one that got them into this situation had him pulling out the stops. He had to find a way out – and he had to do it without his powers - or at least without obvious use of them. He was not going to go the easy way out and knock her unconscious. He was going to have to use brain over brawn this time.

With his back pressed against the wall, he slid behind Lois and placed his hands on her hips. The tight space made it impossible to be behind her without their bodies touching and he thought that for a brief moment he'd felt her shudder. Frowning, he realized that it actually was rather cold.

"Today, Smallville…"

Snapping back to attention, Clark tightened his hold on her waist and lifted. He was careful to make it seem as if the effort was somewhat taxing, even pausing and grunting before giving the final push and extending his arms above him.

"Can you see it?" he called, tilting his head up. Immediately, he brought his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. He hadn't meant to ogle her….

"Yes… whoa." The sudden movement had caused his grip to slide a little. "You okay there?"

"Uh, yeah. Sorry" He gritted his teeth and stabilized the hold. "How's that?"

"Good. Okay, I'm going to climb in."

Clark helped her slide into the opening. A few seconds later her head peeked out over the ledge. "Okay, your turn."

After motioning for her to slide back from the entrance, he bent his legs and jumped high enough to be able to suspend himself by his hands. As soon as he was in that position, he pushed against the walls with his feet and scrambled to hook his elbows onto the landing. Lois was still on her knees from when she'd climbed into the tunnel, and she helped him pull the rest of his body up next to hers.

Once they both were situated, Lois flicked the phone light on again and turned in the direction of deeper into the tunnel. In the distance he could faintly make out the outline of another handle like the one he had turned earlier, except this time, it was connected to a door.

Lois turned back to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well?"

---

Dead end. It was a dead. She should have known it – scratch that – she _had_ known it. She just hadn't wanted to believe it.

But her eyes didn't fail her where her damned undiminished hope did. There was no way around the fact that it was a dead end.

Leaning against the wall and looking across to Clark, she sighed. She needed to think. She needed to… Shaking her head, she groaned and ran a hand through her hair. If there was anything she needed right now, it was a hair tie. She was already cooped up in this ridiculous outfit – _so_ underdressed for a mineshaft adventure.

There was a certain outfitting one needed to have for falling into mineshafts – and other troublesome things like that. For one thing, you didn't wear leather from head to toe. It had no insulation and when wet and cold, it was hardly supple. Another thing – and the list was actually quite long – you needed a radio of some sort. Radios could be rigged to send out transmissions even when they were designed to be receivers. She knew how to do it… you just would need one of those handy dandy all-in-one survivor knives… which was also on the list. A list that also included a flashlight, Lois thought as she rubbed the back of the phone with her thumb.

With a grunt, she pressed and held the button to turn it off. She didn't need the light to show her what she already knew.

It was a dead end.

"We should go take a look."

Lois's head shot up. She could barely make out his features in the dark. "I don't want to," she replied. "I already know what's behind door number 2." It was an irrational fear- but then again, most fears were.

"So, what do you want to do?"

Anything but that, she thought to herself. The only thing she could do about the inevitable was delay it. "Can I ask you something?"

She didn't wait for permission. "Why Lana?"

"Wha - huh?"

She didn't need to see his face clearly to know what expression was on it – she had even surprised herself with that question. Her intention had been just to start a meaningless conversation that would buy her enough time to come up a way out of their current situation that didn't involve a door and a turbine handle. As was often the case, her mouth had spoken before her mind had issued a warning.

"What did you say?" he asked.

She couldn't back down from it… "I said, 'Why Lana'?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" She paused in thought trying to carefully form her question, but now that she was trying to seek it out, her mind was stubbornly blank. "I guess what I'm asking is, why the obsession with Lana Lang? The girl constantly does everything in her power to make you her past and yet you still trail behind her like a sick puppy. What is the draw?"

When he remained silent, Lois began to think that she had crossed the invisible line in the sand that defined the boundaries of their relationship. She could never be sure what those boundaries were because usually, when she pushed, he gave, and vice versa. Maybe she had pushed too far this time… his strange obsession with the girl-next-door was really none of her business.

"She's the one," he finally replied.

Lois realized with a start that she was relieved that he hadn't been insulted after all. In the same instant it struck her that she valued her friendship with Clark a lot more than she had credited… and that she _had_ missed him during her self-imposed exile… or at least had missed their banter. Yes, that was it.

"The one," she repeated, focusing her thoughts back on his words. "The _one_. How do you know?"

She heard the slight rustle of his jacket rubbing against the wall behind him and knew he was shrugging. "She just always has been."

Lois failed to hold back a scoff, but she tried to cover it by clearing her throat. "God, I wish everything were so simple."

---

Clark frowned into the darkness. He could clearly see Lois sitting across from him _and_ he had clearly heard her scoff after his last remark. "It's been anything but simple," he muttered in return.

"Oh, I don't mean it like that. I admire that you can know something like that with such certainty. I thought I knew…" her voice trailed into an almost inaudible sigh.

"Oliver?" He immediately wanted to pull back the word. He had known the circumstances of their breakup – in fact, he had known more about them than Lois. In turn, he had seen how it had hurt her and he hated to know that he had played a role in it.

"Yeah," Lois replied, unaware of his inner dialogue. "I almost made a really big mistake."

Clark didn't know how to respond to that confession. He couldn't imagine where Lois could have made a mistake in the relationship when Oliver was the one who had almost killed her… unless she meant her encounter with the Green Arrow…

"A mistake?" he asked, mentally groaning when his voice cracked.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice. "I was going to let myself love him," she replied quietly.

Clark's head shot up and he renewed his focus on her face. She was staring off into the distance unseeingly. "Lois, I don't think it's ever a mistake to love somebody."

"You wouldn't," she said with a smirk. "And you're right… It actually takes a lot of strength of character to love someone unconditionally, but that's not what I'm talking about. With Oliver, everything seemed perfect on the surface. I had this really great guy, and he loved me… and I… liked him a lot. I was willing to let that be enough."

Clark was surprised that she was revealing something like this to him. He knew that more than anything, Lois hated to be vulnerable in any way. There were times in the past when the two of them shared quiet conversations like these in his loft, but that had been before he had gotten preoccupied with the fallout from the Phantom Zone. He actually felt quite a great deal of relief that they could slip back into their friendship so easily. He had missed it.

"What changed?" He really wanted to know. For some reason, something inside of him was hanging onto her words as if there was a revelation for him hidden in them.

"A kiss…" she said sheepishly, as if she didn't really want to admit it.

Clark found that he had started leaning forward and forced himself to sit back. "Must have been some kiss," he jeered, teasing her gently.

"It was. I told you about it - the Green Arrow. I was so determined, thinking that it was Oliver that I… well, anyway, there was something there – a spark, a connection, a…"

"…Fire?" he finished before mentally slapping a hand over his mouth. If he wasn't careful, his mouth was going to get him into trouble… more trouble, that is.

"Fire, yeah, that too. It reminded me of everything I was willing to give up for a small slice of security."

She stopped and looked across the passageway to him, squinting so she could make out his face. "I'm about to tell you something really girly, but if you repeat it to _anyone_ I'll deny it," she warned.

Clark held up his hand. "What happens in the mineshaft stays in the mineshaft," he promised solemnly.

Lois seemed to find his promise worthy. She nodded and continued. "I want to find true love," she said quickly, as if saying it fast would make it less of a revelation.

"I want to meet that person that keeps me on my toes while making my knees go weak. I want the one who's strong where I'm weak, but whose strength of character complements mine. Someone who tilts my world on its axis whenever we are in the same room together, but sets everything right with one touch. I want to be driven crazy from the spectrum of emotion that he makes me feel… I want a love that is ignited by passion, by challenge, and by complete faith."

Clark was thunderstruck. As Lois described what she wanted in love, he had felt as if blinders were being taken from his eyes. In his determination to make things right… to make them normal and simple, he had made the mistake that Lois was trying to avoid. He had settled.

"Lame, huh?" Lois chided.

"No." The force of his response surprised them both. He tried again, gently, "I mean, I don't think it's lame to know what you want..."

"Well, anyway, the spark I felt when I kissed the Green Arrow Bandit reminded me that passion is a part of who I am… and it should be a part of what I do as well."

Clark licked his lips. "So, you think you might… um, have feelings for the Green Arrow?" Yep. He knew he was asking for it… but, there was something exhilarating about walking into a dangerous situation with nothing but your wits about you.

"No," Lois laughed the notion away, taking his wits with it.

"But the kiss…" he said. He stopped short - was he pleading about a kiss? And better yet, why was he pleading about a kiss?

"If it were just the Green Arrow that I felt that with, then I'd say yes, but I've felt it before…" She suddenly stopped and blinked as if realizing what all she was sharing. Her eyes widened briefly before she sobered her expression, cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her pants. "Well, enough chit-chat. What's our plan again?"

Clark's mind spun as once again, Lois's change of topic and pace left him reeling.

And once again, she answered without waiting for his response. "That's right, we don't have a plan."

He shook his head in amusement and grinned. Lois Lane was one of a kind.

---  
TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Previously:  
---  
_"If it were just the Green Arrow that I felt that with, then I'd say yes, but I've felt it before…" She suddenly stopped and blinked as if realizing what all she was sharing. Her eyes widened briefly before she sobered her expression, cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her pants. "Well, enough chit-chat. What's our plan again?"_

Clark's mind spun as once again, Lois's change of topic and pace left him reeling.

And once again, she answered without waiting for his response. "That's right, we don't have a plan."

He shook his head in amusement and grinned. Lois Lane was one of a kind.  
---

And now:  
---

She needed an escape route quick – not the escape route of the mineshaft variety, although she needed that too – but an escape route from the present conversation. Had she just almost told Clark that kissing him had reminded her of kissing the Green Arrow?

She shook her head – no, she wouldn't have gone there… she had better control over herself than to reveal information of that magnitude.

"Okay, okay," she mumbled before pursing her lips together. She could feel herself nearing babble mode, and once she hit that phase, there was no telling what would come out of her mouth. Undoubtedly, whatever it was would taste a lot like feet. "Escape, hatch, chute, door, knobby thing, maybe water."

"What?"

Lois pushed the hair back from her face. "I'm just cycling through the facts," she explained.

"Oh… Okay."

She released a breath. "Right. So…"

Clark responded in kind. "So…"

She had a feeling that he was looking at her strangely, and suddenly had the ridiculous idea that he had read her mind about the kiss. "We should open the door," she blurted.

Her eyes popped as her mind was once again late to the party.

"What?" Clark asked in surprise, echoing what her mind was saying – except his version didn't include profanities.

He seemed to gather that she was in shock. "Hey, it could just be another empty tunnel like this one…" he offered, trying to assuage her anxieties. "Stay here, I'll go check it out."

As he got to his feet, Lois mentally shook herself. She never stayed behind. Pushing herself to her feet, she hobbled behind him.

"Lois," Clark groaned, turning around and catching her as she took a wrong step and put too much pressure on her ankle. "I said stay."

Gritting her teeth to hide the grimace, she put her hands on her hips and arched an eyebrow. Obviously having realized the error of his ways, Clark lifted his hands in exasperation and turned back to face the passageway.

The mollification Lois obtained from Clark's submission was lost when she had to devote all of her energy to concentrating on her hobble-shuffle-slide walk to follow him. After traveling about 15 feet, they reached the proverbial door in the wall.

Clark knelt and put his ear to the metal. When she felt him straighten in front of her, she braced herself with a hand against the wall beside her. "Well?"

"I'm pretty sure it's water," he replied. There was an apologetic tone to his words.

Lois allowed her eyes to flutter shut as she composed herself. At this point, she could let fear overcome her, or she could overcome her fear. She swallowed. "I'm guessing that whoever is running an establishment like this one would want to make sure they had access to running water. The Woodrow Wilson Dam is 20 miles out. They are probably piping it in from there. We must be in the emergency reservoir for shaft overflow… which means we can get out."

She could faintly make out the head of Clark's silhouette tilting speculatively. "How?"

"Ever hear the proverb about the raven and the pitcher of water?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, the raven dropped stones in the vase to bring the water level up - I get it… But are you sure about this?"

Lois smirked to herself. "Not at all. That's why I know we should do it."

---

Clark couldn't help but grin. Over a half an hour earlier, he was ready to condemn her because she acted on compulsion, but in that same span of time, he had learned to appreciate that trait in her… to a certain degree. She had every reason to be afraid of what she was up against, but she was facing it full on. In fact, she was daring it to take her under. He was starting to think that Lois Lane was the bravest person he knew.

He found it hard to get his mind around the fact that the very thing about her that exasperated him was the same thing that he found so admirable. She made him feel like he was going in two directions at once… she made him feel alive.

His thoughts skidded to a halt as he realized where they were taking him. Instead, he started piecing together a plan of action. Opening the hatch in front of them would allow water from the filter system to flow into the reservoir they were in. As the water level increased, they would be able tread water to stay afloat until they would be able to climb out of the pit. Once out, he simply would have to close the chute, and they could re-enter the main shaft of the mine the way they had come in.

Stepping forward, he swept an arm under Lois's legs and lifted her to his chest.

"Wha…"

"You can barely walk, there's no way you can run," he informed her, cutting off her protest. He knew that if he had asked her before picking her up, she would have fought him off. This way, she had no choice in the matter.

He started walking back toward the tunnel entrance. When Lois opened her mouth to say something, he silenced her with an imitation of her own patented eyebrow quirk. He bit back a laugh when the expression turned out to be as equally effective on her as it usually was on him.

At the opening, he gently lowered her to the ground, consciously careful to help her stand comfortably. "I'm going to go back and open the door so water can start streaming in."

Lois nodded and stretched her neck, moving her head from one side to the other. "I'm ready when you are."

Clark reached out and took her hand. "It'll be okay."

She scoffed. "Who's worried?"

Clark turned and made his way back to the door, frowning down at the handle once he reached his destination. For as simple as it had sounded in his head, he knew there were definite obstacles to his plan. For one thing, he was pretty sure that the amount of water pressure built up on the other side of the door would send a literal wall of sheer force past him once released. As strong as he was, he couldn't hold back the tide. He had to make sure that the door only opened a little so that Lois wouldn't be swept into the chute and hurt badly from the powerful flow of water.

Wrenching the knob handle loose, he pushed against the door with all of his strength to make sure it stayed closed, then, haltingly, he allowed it to open an inch. Water spurted from the crack and he bent the steel door so that it was wedged in place. With a final worried glance, he turned and ran back to where he had left Lois at the edge of the tunnel. He knew that it wouldn't be long before the weight of the water crumbled his makeshift dam.

Sliding to a stop beside her, Clark placed his hands on Lois's shoulders. "Do you trust me?"

After the briefest hesitation – she was no doubt surprised with his drenched appearance – she replied in a clear and sturdy voice, "Yes." She had no way of knowing that Clark was able to see the doubt in her expression through it all.

He pulled her to his chest and sat on the ground. After swinging his legs over the edge of the tunnel, he braced himself for the inevitable. A loud metallic groan came from behind him followed by an angry rush of water. "Here we go."

---

For the second time that night, Lois found herself falling down a chute. While the second fall was a much shorter drop, it was by no means a more pleasant journey. She landed without injuring anything else, this time having the good fortune of being on top, but the water pouring over her head left her sputtering and gasping for air.

She felt herself being pushed from all sides – the metal walls of the chute on her sides, the water from every other direction – and for a brief second, she panicked. She flung her arms around looking for something to grab and slipped further into the onslaught of falling water. In the melee, she couldn't tell up from down, and her state of anxiety increased.

Finally, a hand grasped hold of hers and she was pulled to her feet. Amazingly enough, the flow of water seemed to no longer be directed on her head, though she was still getting doused and could feel the quickly growing pool of water circling around her thighs. Shuddering, she wiped her eyes and opened them to the familiar darkness. Somehow, Clark had gotten her out of the direct flow of the water, but now the pool of water had reached her waist. She shuddered again.

"Lois."

Her head darted up in the direction of his voice. Water continued to cascade down her face and she closed her eyes again. Reaching out with her hands, she grabbed his jacket when her blind search encountered Clark's chest.

"Remember when you asked 'Why, Lana?'"

Lois couldn't believe it. Here she was with freezing water up to her elbows, and he wanted to talk about this? "What the hell, Smallville?!"

"Lois," he repeated, bracing her shoulders with his hands.

"What?!"

"Listen. You said, 'Why Lana', remember?"

Somewhere in the corner of her consciousness, she realized that he was trying to keep her calm by focusing her attention elsewhere. "Yes, I remember." Damn, it was cold in there.

"I thought she was the only one who could love me… the only one I deserved," he explained.

Her teeth chattered, and water reached her shoulders. It was almost time to tread. "I think you sell yourself short, Clark."

They began to tread water, and even though she couldn't see him clearly, she could feel him as their paddling legs and arms intermittently brushed against one another.

"I'm starting to think that you're right," he replied.

The rising water level brought them to the height of the tunnel. Lois tried to mentally calculate how much further they had to go but her brain was feeling sluggish with the amount of things she was trying to get it to do at that moment - namely survive. "About what?" she asked, confused. She wasn't sure what they were talking about anymore.

"Love."

She paddled faster, hoping that it would somehow translate to a warmer body temperature. "Oh, that… right." She started to tune him out again.

"…was the only one for me. I fell over myself any time she came near me and the only explanation I had for it was full-fledged love…"

Lois took a moment to mentally shake her head in disgust and almost sucked in a mouthful of water when the motion took her focus off of treading.

"…with Alicia was a thrill. I loved that she loved me – all of me – but I don't think I loved her the same way. Not like Lana. Loving Lana was like breathing."

"Smallville, you really need to let that one go. Lana's moved on," Lois sputtered impatiently. "There should only be two people in a relationship and your Lana fixation is not fair for the next girl who thinks she's in love with you." The vehemence behind her words startled her. "Not that I care, or anything… I just mean… it wouldn't be fair… for her. The girl."

Lois sighed. She'd bungled that one up. Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure up the imagery of a nice swim at an exotic beach… warm cerulean blue water, warm sun shining down on her, and warm sand waiting for her return to shore. When a familiar warm male body floated into view, her eyes flew open. Perhaps it was better to be confronted with cold reality after all.

---

Clark frowned as he tried to decipher if there was anything besides annoyance in Lois's tone. Initially, he had started talking as a way to keep Lois's mind off of a potential drowning, but the more he talked, the more he began to speak earnestly. Somehow, airing his thoughts to Lois tended to always be both revelatory to himself and relieving. A sudden jerk from her brought his attention from his inner speculation. "I've already let Lana go," he said.

"Could've fooled me," she muttered back.

"I _have_," he insisted. He gazed up to the top of the chute to estimate their progress. The water was still rising steadily.

"Then what is with this Taxi cab confessional about your once on-again-off-again ex-girlfriend?"

"I was getting to a point," he answered. He couldn't help but grin. Even in the midst of paddling water inside of a tiny water chute, Lois still managed exasperation at his expense.

He expected her to ask what point he was getting to but the arched eyebrow was essentially the same thing.

"I was trying to say that you were right," he added.

"Naturally," she quipped. Then after a beat, "Right about what?"

"About love having that spark… that connection. Everything you said you wanted is what I want too. I just didn't know it before." He trailed off for a second. "The Green Arrow…You said that you felt that spark before…"

Lois's paddling faltered and he reached out to help keep her afloat. "I've felt it too," he admitted in a soft voice.

His stomach did a flip. He was nearing the point of no return and that was something that scared him more than Kryptonite. The only thing he could equate his past with Lana to was confusion. At first, he did get weak in the knees whenever she was near. He would fall all over himself and his heart would race. Everything he had known about love had symptoms like that, so he had no reason to think otherwise… until he learned about Kryptonite. A small smirk graced Clark's lips as he thought about his mistaking the reaction to Lana's necklace for head-over-heels infatuation.

But Lana had always been unobtainable, and like the mule chasing the proverbial carrot, he had continued to yearn after that which he could not get. Lana was a symbol for the normal life that he always wanted. She was the girl in his dreams of tradition and humanity. But he was neither a typical male nor human, and when he came to face those terms… he had to face certain realities with them.

Like, for instance, the fact that he had been fighting to suppress a secret crush on Lois Lane since the moment they had met in the cornfield. At the time, he hadn't been himself, so he had chocked those feelings up to his alter-ego's hormone imbalance… an imbalance which had lingering effects.

"I felt it with…"

"Land, ho!" Lois exclaimed, interrupting his train of thought.

Looking around, he saw that the water level had indeed risen to the top of the chute. Dazed, he followed as Lois scrambled from the hole.

Once clear of the opening, they both stood to their feet – the cold water must have been therapeutic for Lois's injured ankle because she was showing very little discomfort. Clark felt a little cheapened that his point of no return had been interrupted. He reached out and took her forearm before she could step further away.

"I felt it with you," he said determined.

"The cold water has made you delusional."

"You spin me about, Lois. You have since the day we met." With narrowed eyes, Clark stepped closer, tilted his head and captured her lips with his own. He could feel the urgency behind his kiss but could do nothing to temper it. He was searching for something… She may not be able to remember, but there had been a time of abandon when their spark had nearly caused them both to combust.

Lois had stiffened as soon as he had connected to her, much like she had done earlier in the Camelot Room, but unlike earlier, she wasn't relaxing. Feeling her begin to pull away, he lifted a hand to her face, cupping her cheek after brushing her wet hair out of the way. Tipping her head back, he pressed closer.

---

Lois parted her lips and tried to convince herself that she had done so to get a breath and not because Clark's tongue had sought entrance. Her mental dialogue ended with an audible moan as that same tongue began running lightly along the inside of her lower lip instead of plunging deeper as she had expected it too.

This was the second time in the span of a couple of hours that Clark had surprised her with a kiss. The earlier one had been… interesting. When she had told him about feeling the spark with the Green Arrow, she hadn't been lying. She also hadn't been lying about having felt the spark elsewhere. That, actually, was the source of her inner turmoil and confusion.

She had almost given up on finding the _one_ - the one who would make her world spin backwards, the one who would make her soul defy gravity – only, just when she was preparing to let the dream go, a kiss had re-ignited the fire behind the fantasy. A kiss that was not bestowed by her boyfriend – the man she was _supposed_ to love.

Still, that hadn't been enough to make her abandon her commitment to Oliver. She had still been determined to choose reality over fantasy, but then Oliver had left. It had hurt. Failure was not an acceptable word in her vocabulary, but he had gone and there was nothing she could do about it but move on. So that is what she did. She hadn't even given the whole 'kiss and spark' thing any further attention… until tonight.

Tonight, Clark had kissed her under pretense, and something in her had responded. For a few moments, she'd panicked at the thought that she would now have that feeling anytime she kissed anyone from that point on. Then, just a few moments ago… seconds, really… the fear had passed. It had passed because in this second kiss, it was just a boy kissing a girl. Two people having an intimate conversation. There was no pretense, no cover, no preoccupation… and no spark.

Instead, it was a flame.

_This_ kiss… something about this kiss was familiar - a feeling like coming home, coming back yet looking forward. Somehow, the two of them fit together perfectly, countering move for move with practiced ease as if they had spent a lifetime doing just this.

His body was hard in all the right places and she wasn't nearly as unaffected as she pretended to be. Usually, whenever she experienced a moment of confusion over the boundaries that kept Clark securely in the friend box, she would make fun of his attire or find some other way to cover her mind lapse. She needed those boundaries because she couldn't… give…

The words suddenly disintegrated in her head. She couldn't _think_ straight when he pressed his full length against her. Her knees went a little wobbly when he lightly nipped her lip with his teeth, but she steadied herself by leaning further into him. She refused to melt – she had never met a self-respecting puddle in her life.

Oh, yeah, what he was doing to her mouth was pure heaven but there was something niggling at the back of her consciousness… there was something she was forgetting…

Mineshaft… right.

Lois pulled back, panting from a not altogether unpleasant exertion – she had forgotten all about breathing for a while there – and tried to find words. "Water… hole, thing…" she stuttered. Chuckling at her mind-numbedness, she licked her lips and tried again. "The water is still coming through the hole."

---  
TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Previously:  
---

_Oh, yeah, what he was doing to her mouth was pure heaven but there was something niggling at the back of her consciousness… there was something she was forgetting…_

Mineshaft… right.

Lois pulled back, panting from a not altogether unpleasant exertion – she had forgotten all about breathing for a while there – and tried to find words. "Water… hole, thing…" she stuttered. Chuckling at her mind-numbedness, she licked her lips and tried again. "The water is still coming through the hole."

---

And Now:  
---

Clark's gaze was focused on her lips, but he didn't really hear her words until she repeated them with a little more emphasis.

"The water, Clark," she repeated, turning and sloshing toward the handle on the wall. She was making sure to stay close to the wall as to avoid the hole as she went.

Blinking, Clark finally came to attention. He briskly moved to the wall and reached for the handle when Lois's efforts failed to move the chute's doors. The pressure of the water coming up through the chute was obviously making it near impossible for them to be closed again. He added force to the turn when his initial attempt was unsuccessful. The metal handle gave a brief groan before snapping off in his hand.

"What happened?" Lois asked. He knew there was no way she could have clearly seen him rip the handle from the wall in the dark.

"Uh… I can't get it to budge. The doors aren't going to close."

"Oh," she replied flatly. If she was thinking what he was thinking, and he was pretty sure that she was, then she had realized what would happen if those doors weren't closed. "We should go."

"Yeah. Let's."

It wouldn't happen in the next few minutes, or probably not even in the next hour… but the underground passage they were in was going to flood. And when it filled with water, it was going to flood upstairs as well.

They headed back to the makeshift manhole cover that they had come through, and once again, Clark lifted Lois to his shoulder so she could move the cement block. When it appeared that the weight of it was giving her trouble, he surreptitiously released a short pointed breath its direction – essentially blowing the lid off - but not so much as to make it obvious.

---

Lois gave pause at her sudden surge of strength. It was almost as if an invisible hand had reached past her… but that was ludicrous. Bracing against Clark, she pushed herself up into the hallway, grateful that the coast still seemed to be clear - she wasn't sure what she could say that would be good enough to explain why she was coming out of a hole in the floor. She racked her brain for a description of a themed room that could take place underground but couldn't get past the disturbing image of bandana wearing turtles.

Thankfully her unproductive brainstorm proved to be pointless, as Clark climbed out seconds behind her and replaced the grate. They both stood to their feet and looked around warily while allowing their eyes to readjust to the dim light of the corridor.

Lois smiled. "They probably gave up when they didn't find us inside."

Clark's expression was unsurprisingly doubtful. "They might still think that we were somewhere outside the premises though. We'll have to be careful."

"Of course," she agreed, rolling her eyes. When was she not careful?

After a beat, she decided that the answer to that question was irrelevant. "Whatever."

Clark gave her a telling look and she narrowed her eyes. She didn't like to be quoted to herself… or mirror imaged to herself for that matter. Stepping past him, she started walking down the hall toward the mine's exit… and back to where the whole adventure had begun.

They avoided the window slots of the rooms they passed, but there was no question of their limited vacancy. Obviously, in the time they had spent in the pit, not much of the clientele had thinned out. Something in one of the rooms caught her eye and she swallowed a gag. Elvis, apparently, was one of those people that was still in the building.

When they arrived at the crossroads to the hall that led to the main entrance, Lois acted on a sudden impulse and continued straight instead of making the left turn toward the exit.

---

At some point, without even verbally acknowledging it, Clark and Lois had reached the hand-holding stage. It had felt so natural that he hadn't even noticed it until his progress walking toward the exit was halted by the tug of their interlaced fingers.

Frowning, he turned to face her at the same time she turned to face him. When he had started down the hallway to the main door, he had been able to scan the area outside. 'Mickey the Leech' was no longer lying on the ground, and as far as he could tell, no one was watching the exit. If they left now, it would probably be their best chance of making a clean getaway.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a low voice.

Lois glanced down at their hands – perhaps equally surprised at their linkage – and then back up at him. "There's still a story to break..."

Clark felt that their window of opportunity for escape was narrowing by the second. "But you're soaking wet…" He then nodded his head in the direction of his selected path. "And in that way lies freedom."

In turn, she nodded her head in the direction of her chosen path. "In this way lies truth."

"Deeper into the mine?" he questioned. "Where there are more guards, guns, and other troublesome things like that?"

Lois nodded emphatically. "A place like this has to have offices. Offices have files. Files have names," she listed; her expression growing serious. "In just a little while, 'the powers that be' are going to have their hands full with a mass exodus of naked people once the water gets up here. When that happens, all record of this place will be erased from the map before half of the vip's even get to their respective homes. A list of names could make it so the baddies can't just disappear."

Her lips pursed in a hint of a smile as she locked eyes with him… testing… calculating. "Are you with me?"

For a moment, Clark contemplated. Then, finally he made his decision – tightening his hold on her hand, he chose his direction.

For better or for worse. "Yeah, I'm with you."

---

She wanted to kiss him just then but she held back. They had been standing at a crossroads more meaningful than the literal depiction that the floor plan indicated. If Clark had chosen not to pursue the story further, she would have respected his decision.

She would have been disappointed with it, but she would have respected it all the same. "I'm glad you came looking for me tonight," she said softly.

"Me too."

Breaking eye contact, she nodded curtly. Business was at hand. 

They walked down the unfamiliar corridor, and Lois noticed that the doors in this new section of the mine were farther apart. In addition, the doors themselves seemed to be made of heavier material and below their little window slots, there were small red and green indicator lights to show the occupancy status of each room.

As they moved down the hall at a tentative pace, Lois found herself wishing that their wet shoes didn't make so much noise on the concrete floor.

The far end of the passageway ended with an opening to the right, suggesting that the hall continued on after the turn. Something in her gut told her that the offices were down that way, but just as she was about to increase her pace, Clark pulled her back.

"What?" she whispered worriedly. His eyes had narrowed and he was looking down the hall.

"Someone's coming."

She studied his face for a moment, barely suppressing the urge to question exactly how he could know that, but when she thought back to other times she had seen that particular look on his face, she found that he had always been right on the money. She started to consider the fact that she might not be the only one on the team with good instincts.

She faced back the way they came and pulled him towards the nearest door with a green light. Ducking inside, they pressed against the inside of the door and peeked out of the window slot to try to get a glimpse of the person coming down the hall. If it were guests of the establishment, they could get an idea of who all was involved in this sordid affair. On the other hand, if it were…

"Mickey!" Clark hissed under his breath.

A second later, the face of Lois's nemesis from earlier that night came into view as he walked by the room they were hiding in. Mickey was scowling, holding an ice pack to his head with his right hand, and gripping a nasty looking pistol tightly in his left. Lois guessed that he was on a war hunt and that they were his prey.

She gulped and glanced down at her drenched outfit. Dressed like this, Mickey would have no trouble setting his sights on her once they came out of the fox hole. She turned to face the room they were in and tried to make out their surroundings in the dark. A motion engaged light flicked on when she stepped forward and she jumped back with a start.

Behind her, Clark turned from the door. "Why'd you turn on the…"

With the dropping of his voice, she imagined that his surprise matched her own at the room's décor. They had just stumbled into ancient Egypt.

"Wow. I guess this is the high class fetish wing," she quipped in a whisper. The room was larger than the Camelot themed room and more elaborately decorated. Sheer golden curtains hung from the rails of the large four-poster bed that was situated in the center of the room on a raised deck.

With a chuckle, Lois stepped past the bed and ducked behind a beautifully painted shoji screen.

---

"What are you doing?" Clark asked, pausing to take one more look out of the window before following Lois across the room. He found her picking through a small pile of garments that were lying across a chaise lounge.

She straightened and held out what looked like a tunic with leather straps. "We need a change of costume."

"A change of… Why?"

"One: Mickey knows what we were wearing. Two, and this is actually something _you_ pointed out first: we're soaking wet. And three: if we look like guests when the panic from the flooding hits, we can merge with the crowd and we'll be home free." She grinned victoriously and shoved the costume against his chest.

He frowned at the clothes as they dropped into his arms and looked at what she had chosen for herself. "Why do you get the pants?"

"I'm the dancer to your pharaoh," she smirked. "I think Cleopatra and Caesar are a little played out." She pointed to the other items left in the pile and he was forced to agree.

He was still trying to figure out the correct assemblage of his leather skirt and golden belt when her grunts alerted his attention. A few minutes earlier, he had moved from behind the screen to allow her privacy while she changed.

"Could use a little help here," she announced.

Lois came from behind the screen, and he saw that she had pulled off her leather jacket and had donned the silky costume pants. Her attention was focused on lacing the many strings of the pants when she addressed him.

"It's this halter top," she said, still looking down. "Do you know how hard it is to take leather off when it's wet? If you don't mind, the zipper's in the…"

Her words trailed off when she looked up. Clark felt an ego surge when her eyes seemed to get stuck on his bare chest.

"…back," she finished, clearing her throat. She spun around and lifted her hair off of her neck.

He had just gotten the zipper down when there was a rough knock on the door. Their eyes met in wide shock. "The light on the door!" Lois whispered.

"It's still green!" he replied, immediately on the same wavelength. They hadn't changed the signal on the door when they entered. With the interior light now on, it was bound to look suspicious to a passing guard.

Lois's expression morphed into one of amusement. She smirked at him. "We need a cover."

Here we go again, Clark thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the door handle start to turn and acted impulsively. After placing her arms around his neck, he bent his knees and lifted her legs so they wrapped around his hips. Then he simultaneously turned around and backed her up against the nearest visible wall.

The door opened just as he attached his mouth to her neck, leaning into her and using his nose to nudge her head back. He hoped that the position looked as if she were in the throes of ecstatic pleasure.

"Sorry folks," a familiar gruff voice entered. "I'll just switch your light."

The door closed and Clark pulled his head back to meet Lois's gaze. "That was Mickey, wasn't it?"

She nodded and he physically felt her laughing response in more places than one. "He didn't suspect a thing."

She eyed him for a moment. "I never knew you could be this bold."

Swallowing, he awkwardly moved his hands higher so they were on her back – a much safer and less intimate location than the previous. "Too much, too fast?" he asked.

She fingered the hairs at the back of his neck and he tried to conceal his responding shiver.

"Let me introduce myself. Lois – Lois Lane. Too much, too fast is the way I live."

She unhooked her legs and he stepped back to give her enough space to slide to her feet. He knew he was in for it - if this night was any indication of what his future had in store for him, then it was clear that Lois Lane wasn't going to bring him anything but trouble.

But, then again, he wouldn't want it any other way.

-- The E…

"Clark?"

Clark blinked away from his mental 'riding off into the sunset' scene to meet her eyes again.

She looked like it was taking everything she had not to burst out laughing. "I spin you about? Is that a line from a movie or something?"

He felt his face flush and started to drop his head to hide it but Lois placed a hand on his chin before he could. Grinning, she leaned up and closed the distance between their faces. Halting just before their lips touched, she raised her eyes to his.

"How about I do the saving this time?"

---

-- The End (the rizzle dizzle, baby!) --


End file.
